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Saturday, 7th October 2017

The downthetubes news blog was assimilated into our main site back in 2013, but we're glad you're here, because that's currently undergoing some under the bonnet refurb! So we've brought this blog back from the dead to tide us over.

We expect to be back up and running next week, just before the 2017 Lakes International Comic Art Festival - see you there?

Hop over to www.downthetubes.net for other British comics news, comic creating guides, interviews and much more!

Saturday, 25 April 2009

Orang Utan Moves to Light Speed

British indie publisher Orang Utan Comics have just released two new comics, both available to order online - and which will be on sale at the Comics Expo in Bristol next month.

FTL#1, available from Indyplanet, is the first issue of their brand new black and white anthology featuring 32 pages of beautifully greyscaled art and new stories by Orang Utan Comics veterans Ian Sharman, Peter Rogers and Trey Wickwire, along with a brand new story from the exceptionally talented Dwight L. MacPherson (creator of the web comic, The Surreal Adventures of Edgar Allan Poo).

The first senses shattering issue of FTL will take you to a future Earth ravaged by a war between humans and robots; you’ll see a young girl seduced and corrupted by the darkness of vampirism:you’ll ride with a group of vampire hunters as they hunt the last true vampire; and you’ll see terrifying beasts return from myth and legend to lay waste to mankind!

Also released today is the Alpha Gods graphic novel, previously available to read online in ebook form. Since its online launch via myebook.com, the in excess of 8,000 views in the three months since its release have persuaded Orang Utan Comics to release the entire 48 page, full colour graphic novel in print.

Wraped in a cover by John Charles, Alpha Gods follows in the foot steps of many a superhero comic, charting the gathering of an all-new superteam to battle threats to the world. Like Marvel's X-Men characters (particularly Nightcrawler and Beast), some are outcasts from society, untrained loose cannons whose mettle has yet to be tested. Against this, writer Ian Sharman weaves an unsettling background tale of fallen gods with Machiavellian plans for the world, with some accomplished if in places still-developing art from Ezequiel Pineda. (The good, I hasten to add, more than outweighing the occasional composition glitch: his design and visual sense is superb, influenced I suspect more by George Perez Teen Titans than the X-Men artists I can think of, although Paul Smith also springs to mind).

This graphic novel is effectively a scene setter for a wider story to come, but it's an entertaining and intriguing scene setter nevertheless, offering a depth to many of the characters often missing from many superteam books.

Both FTL and Alpha Gods will be available at the Orang Utan Comics stand at next month’s Bristol International Comic Expo, and also at the London MCM Expo later in the month. You can also order both titles online via the print on demand service, IndyPlanet (see links below).

“May is going to be a big month for Orang Utan Comics," enthuses Ian. "Not only do we have two great new titles to promote, but we’re also looking forward to getting out and meeting our fans.”

• There will be an Orang Utan Comics panel at the Bristol International Comic Expo next month. The panel will be held at 4.00pm in the Park Suite at the Ramada Plaza Hotel in Bristol on Saturday 9th May, where the OUC team will be celebrating their second anniversary of creating what Ian calls “comics for a strange new world."

The site downthetubes.net, which began publishing in 1999, is edited by John Freeman whose credits include editor of Doctor Who Magazine, Star Trek Magazine, Star Wars Magazine, and Marvel UK titles such as Overkill, Death's Head II, Warheads and others. He's currently editor of the upcoming Strip Magazine for Print Media Productions.

About the Writers:

• Matthew Badham has written features for Judge Dredd: The Megazine, the Forbidden Planet International blog and more

• Jeremy Briggs contributes news, reviews, interviews and historical articles on British comics. He is a guest writer on Steve Holland's UK comics history blog, Bear Alley, and has written for Comics International, TV Zone, Spaceship Away and Omnivistascope.

• David Hailwood has written comic strips for various publications, including TOXIC, Accent UK, Bulletproof and Futurequake. He also writes comedy material for TV, and regularly contributes to the Temple APA (a showcase for UK comic writers and artists).

• Andy Luke is a writer who draws: he's s created the eponymous Andy Luke's Comic Book, Gran, Absence: a comic about epilepsy, Hold the Phones, It's Alex Jones, and graphic novel, The Watch Thief. He's written about comics too, mainly for Bugpowder.com, and has been involved with the Caption comics festival in Oxford. He currently lives in Belfast with a large box of pasta and a 7ft tall cigarette, and can be found online at http://andy-luke.com and http://awriterwhodraws.com

• Ian Wheeler is a freelance writer who also edited the highly-acclaimed British comics fanzine Eagle Flies Again.